Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  It was then that the young man told his mother the story of his marriage: how that marriage had been contracted in haste, but with no real desire for secrecy; how he had, out of mere idleness, put off writing to his friends until that last fatal night; and how, at the very moment when the pen was in his hand and the paper spread out before him, the different claims of a double duty had torn him asunder, and he had been summoned from the companionship of his bride to the deathbed of his father.

  Mrs. Arundel tried in vain to set her son’s mind at rest upon the subject of his wife’s silence.

  “No, mother!” he cried; “it is useless talking to me. You don’t know my poor darling. She has the courage of a heroine, as well as the simplicity of a child. There has been some foul play at the bottom of this; it is treachery that has kept my wife from me. She would have come here on foot, had she been free to come. I know whose hand is in this business. Olivia Marchmont has kept my poor girl a prisoner; Olivia Marchmont has set herself between me and my darling!”

  “But you don’t know this, Edward. I’ll write to Mr. Paulette; he will be able to tell us what has happened.”

  The young man writhed in a sudden paroxysm of mental agony.

  “Write to Mr. Paulette!” he exclaimed. “No, mother; there shall be no delay, no waiting for return–posts. That sort of torture would kill me in a few hours. No, mother; I will go to my wife by the first train that will take me on my way to Lincolnshire.”

  “You will go! You, Edward! in your state!”

  There was a terrible outburst of remonstrance and entreaty on the part of the poor mother. Mrs. Arundel went down upon her knees before her son, imploring him not to leave Dangerfield till his strength was recovered; imploring him to let her telegraph a summons to Richard Paulette; to let her go herself to Marchmont Towers in search of Mary; to do anything rather than carry out the one mad purpose that he was bent on,––the purpose of going himself to look for his wife.

  The mother’s tears and prayers were vain; no adamant was ever firmer than the young soldier.

  “She is my wife, mother,” he said; “I have sworn to protect and cherish her; and I have reason to think she has fallen into merciless hands. If I die upon the road, I must go to her. It is not a case in which I can do my duty by proxy. Every moment I delay is a wrong to that poor helpless girl. Be reasonable, dear mother, I implore you; I should suffer fifty times more by the torture of suspense if I stayed here, than I can possibly suffer in a railroad journey from here to Lincolnshire.”

  The soldier’s strong will triumphed over every opposition. The provincial doctors held up their hands, and protested against the madness of their patient; but without avail. All that either Mrs. Arundel or the doctors could do, was to make such preparations and arrangements as would render the weary journey easier; and it was under the mother’s superintendence that the air–cushions, the brandy–flasks, the hartshorn, sal–volatile, and railway–rugs, had been provided for the Captain’s comfort.

  It was thus that, after a blank interval of three months, Edward Arundel, like some creature newly risen from the grave, returned to Swampington, upon his way to Marchmont Towers.

  The delay seemed endless to this restless passenger, sitting in the empty waiting–room of the quiet Lincolnshire station, though the ostler and stable–boys at the “George” were bestirring themselves with good–will, urged on by Mr. Morrison’s promises of liberal reward for their trouble, and though the man who was to drive the carriage lost no time in arraying himself for the journey. Captain Arundel looked at his watch three times while he sat in that dreary Swampington waiting–room. There was a clock over the mantelpiece, but he would not trust to that.

  “Eight o’clock!” he muttered. “It will be ten before I get to the Towers, if the carriage doesn’t come directly.”

  He got up, and walked from the waiting–room to the platform, and from the platform to the door of the station. He was so weak as to be obliged to support himself with his stick; and even with that help he tottered and reeled sometimes like a drunken man. But, in his eager impatience, he was almost unconscious of his own weakness.

  “Will it never come?” he muttered. “Will it never come?”

  At last, after an intolerable delay, as it seemed to the young man, the carriage–and–pair from the George Inn rattled up to the door of the station, with Mr. Morrison upon the box, and a postillion loosely balanced upon one of the long–legged, long–backed, bony grey horses. Edward Arundel got into the vehicle before his valet could alight to assist him.

  “Marchmont Towers!” he cried to the postillion; “and a five–pound note if you get there in less than an hour.”

  He flung some money to the officials who had gathered about the door to witness his departure, and who had eagerly pressed forward to render him that assistance which, even in his weakness, he disdained.

  These men looked gravely at each other as the carriage dashed off into the fog, blundering and reeling as it went along the narrow half–made road, that led from the desert patch of waste ground upon which the station was built into the high–street of Swampington.

  “Marchmont Towers!” said one of the men, in a tone that seemed to imply that there was something ominous even in the name of the Lincolnshire mansion. “What does he want at Marchmont Towers, I wonder?”

  “Why, don’t you know who he is, mate?” responded the other man, contemptuously.

  “No.”

  “He’s Parson Arundel’s nevy,––the young officer that some folks said ran away with the poor young miss oop at the Towers.”

  “My word! is he now? Why, I shouldn’t ha’ known him.”

  “No; he’s a’most like the ghost of what he was, poor young chap. I’ve heerd as he was in that accident as happened last August on the Sou’–Western.”

  The railway official shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s all a queer story,” he said. “I can’t make out naught about it; but I know I shouldn’t care to go up to the Towers after dark.”

  Marchmont Towers had evidently fallen into rather evil repute amongst these simple Lincolnshire people.

  * * * * *

  The carriage in which Edward Arundel rode was a superannuated old chariot, whose uneasy springs rattled and shook the sick man to pieces. He groaned aloud every now and then from sheer physical agony; and yet I almost doubt if he knew that he suffered, so superior in its intensity was the pain of his mind to every bodily torture. Whatever consciousness he had of his racked and aching limbs was as nothing in comparison to the racking anguish of suspense, the intolerable agony of anxiety, which seemed multiplied by every moment. He sat with his face turned towards the open window of the carriage, looking out steadily into the night. There was nothing before him but a blank darkness and thick fog, and a flat country blotted out by the falling rain; but he strained his eyes until the pupils dilated painfully, in his desire to recognise some landmark in the hidden prospect.

  “When shall I get there?” he cried aloud, in a paroxysm of rage and grief. “My own one, my pretty one, my wife, when shall I get to you?”

  He clenched his thin hands until the nails cut into his flesh. He stamped upon the floor of the carriage. He cursed the rusty, creaking springs, the slow–footed horses, the pools of water through which the wretched animals floundered pastern–deep. He cursed the darkness of the night, the stupidity of the postillion, the length of the way,––everything, and anything, that kept him back from the end which he wanted to reach.

  At last the end came. The carriage drew up before the tall iron gates, behind which stretched, dreary and desolate as some patch of common–land, that melancholy waste which was called a park.

  A light burned dimly in the lower window of the lodge,––a little spot that twinkled faintly red and luminous through the darkness and the rain; but the iron gates were as closely shut as if Marchmont Towers had been a prison–house. Edward Arundel was in no humour to linger long for the opening of those gat
es. He sprang from the carriage, reckless of the weakness of his cramped limbs, before the valet could descend from the rickety box–seat, or the postillion could get off his horse, and shook the wet and rusty iron bars with his own wasted hands. The gates rattled, but resisted the concussion; they had evidently been locked for the night. The young man seized an iron ring, dangling at the end of a chain, which hung beside one of the stone pillars, and rang a peal that resounded like an alarm–signal through the darkness. A fierce watchdog far away in the distance howled dismally at the summons, and the dissonant shriek of a peacock sounded across the flat.

  The door of the lodge was opened about five minutes after the bell had rung, and an old man peered out into the night, holding a candle shaded by his feeble hand, and looking suspiciously towards the gate.

  “Who is it?” he said.

  “It is I, Captain Arundel. Open the gate, please.”

  The man, who was very old, and whose intellect seemed to have grown as dim and foggy as the night itself, reflected for a few moments, and then mumbled,––

  “Cap’en Arundel! Ay, to be sure, to be sure. Parson Arundel’s nevy; ay, ay.”

  He went back into the lodge, to the disgust and aggravation of the young soldier, who rattled fiercely at the gate once more in his impatience. But the old man emerged presently, as tranquil as if the blank November night had been some sunshiny noontide in July, carrying a lantern and a bunch of keys, one of which he proceeded in a leisurely manner to apply to the great lock of the gate.

  “Let me in!” cried Edward Arundel. “Man alive! do you think I came down here to stand all night staring through these iron bars? Is Marchmont Towers a prison, that you shut your gates as if they were never to be opened until the Day of Judgment?”

  The old man responded with a feeble, chirpy laugh, an audible grin, senile and conciliatory.

  “We’ve no need to keep t’ geates open arter dark,” he said; “folk doan’t coome to the Toowers arter dark.”

  He had succeeded by this time in turning the key in the lock; one of the gates rolled slowly back upon its rusty hinges, creaking and groaning as if in hoarse protest against all visitors to the Towers; and Edward Arundel entered the dreary domain which John Marchmont had inherited from his kinsman.

  The postillion turned his horses from the highroad without the gates into the broad drive leading up to the mansion. Far away, across the wet flats, the broad western front of that gaunt stone dwelling–place frowned upon the travellers, its black grimness only relieved by two or three dim red patches, that told of lighted windows and human habitation. It was rather difficult to associate friendly flesh and blood with Marchmont Towers on this dark November night. The nervous traveller would have rather expected to find diabolical denizens lurking within those black and stony walls; hideous enchantments beneath that rain–bespattered roof; weird and incarnate horrors brooding by deserted hearths, and fearful shrieks of souls in perpetual pain breaking upon the stillness of the night.

  Edward Arundel had no thought of these things. He knew that the place was darksome and gloomy, and that, in very spite of himself, he had always been unpleasantly impressed by it; but he knew nothing more. He only wanted to reach the house without delay, and to ask for the young wife whom he had parted with upon a balmy August evening three months before. He wanted this passionately, almost madly; and every moment made his impatience wilder, his anxiety more intense. It seemed as if all the journey from Dangerfield Park to Lincolnshire was as nothing compared to the space that still lay between him and Marchmont Towers.

  “We’ve done it in double–quick time, sir,” the postillion said, complacently pointing to the steaming sides of his horses. “Master’ll gie it to me for driving the beasts like this.”

  Edward Arundel looked at the panting animals. They had brought him quickly, then, though the way had seemed so long.

  “You shall have a five–pound note, my lad,” he said, “if you get me up to yonder house in five minutes.”

  He had his hand upon the door of the carriage, and was leaning against it for support, while he tried to recover enough strength with which to clamber into the vehicle, when his eye was caught by some white object flapping in the rain against the stone pillar of the gate, and made dimly visible in a flickering patch of light from the lodge–keeper’s lantern.

  “What’s that?” he cried, pointing to this white spot upon the moss–grown stone.

  The old man slowly raised his eyes to the spot towards which the soldier’s finger pointed.

  “That?” he mumbled. “Ay, to be sure, to be sure. Poor young lady! That’s the printed bill as they stook oop. It’s the printed bill, to be sure, to be sure. I’d a’most forgot it. It ain’t been much good, anyhow; and I’d a’most forgot it.”

  “The printed bill! the young lady!” gasped Edward Arundel, in a hoarse, choking voice.

  He snatched the lantern from the lodge–keeper’s hand with a force that sent the old man reeling and tottering several paces backward; and, rushing to the stone pillar, held the light up above his head, on a level with the white placard which had attracted his notice. It was damp and dilapidated at the edges; but that which was printed upon it was as visible to the soldier as though each commonplace character had been a fiery sign inscribed upon a blazing scroll.

  This was the announcement which Edward Arundel read upon the gate–post of Marchmont Towers:––

  “ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.––Whereas Miss Mary Marchmont left her home on Wednesday last, October 17th, and has not since been heard of, this is to give notice that the above reward will be given to any one who shall afford such information as will lead to her recovery if she be alive, or to the discovery of her body if she be dead. The missing young lady is eighteen years of age, rather below the middle height, of fair complexion, light–brown hair, and hazel eyes. When she left her home, she had on a grey silk dress, grey shawl, and straw bonnet. She was last seen near the river–side upon the afternoon of Wednesday, the 17th instant.

  “Marchmont Towers, October 20th, 1848.”

  CHAPTER VII. FACE TO FACE.

  It is not easy to imagine a lion–hearted young cavalry officer, whose soldiership in the Punjaub had won the praises of a Napier and an Outram, fainting away like a heroine of romance at the coming of evil tidings; but Edward Arundel, who had risen from a sick–bed to take a long and fatiguing journey in utter defiance of the doctors, was not strong enough to bear the dreadful welcome that greeted him upon the gate–post at Marchmont Towers.

  He staggered, and would have fallen, had not the extended arms of his father’s confidential servant been luckily opened to receive and support him. But he did not lose his senses.

  “Get me into the carriage, Morrison,” he cried. “Get me up to that house. They’ve tortured and tormented my wife while I’ve been lying like a log on my bed at Dangerfield. For God’s sake, get me up there as quick as you can!”

  Mr. Morrison had read the placard on the gate across his young master’s shoulder. He lifted the Captain into the carriage, shouted to the postillion to drive on, and took his seat by the young man’s side.

  “Begging you pardon, Mr. Edward,” he said, gently; “but the young lady may be found by this time. That bill’s been sticking there for upwards of a month, you see, sir, and it isn’t likely but what Miss Marchmont has been found between that time and this.”

  The invalid passed his hand across his forehead, down which the cold sweat rolled in great beads.

  “Give me some brandy,” he whispered; “pour some brandy down my throat, Morrison, if you’ve any compassion upon me; I must get strength somehow for the struggle that lies before me.”

  The valet took a wicker–covered flask from his pocket, and put the neck of it to Edward Arundel’s lips.

  “She may be found, Morrison,” muttered the young man, after drinking a long draught of the fiery spirit; he would willingly have drunk living fire itself, in his desire to obtain unnatural strength in
this crisis. “Yes; you’re right there. She may be found. But to think that she should have been driven away! To think that my poor, helpless, tender girl should have been driven a second time from the home that is her own! Yes; her own by every law and every right. Oh, the relentless devil, the pitiless devil!––what can be the motive of her conduct? Is it madness, or the infernal cruelty of a fiend incarnate?”

  Mr. Morrison thought that his young master’s brain had been disordered by the shock he had just undergone, and that this wild talk was mere delirium.

  “Keep your heart up, Mr. Edward,” he murmured, soothingly; “you may rely upon it, the young lady has been found.”

  But Edward was in no mind to listen to any mild consolatory remarks from his valet. He had thrust his head out of the carriage–window, and his eyes were fixed upon the dimly–lighted casements of the western drawing–room.

  “The room in which John and Polly and I used to sit together when first I came from India,” he murmured. “How happy we were!––how happy we were!”

  The carriage stopped before the stone portico, and the young man got out once more, assisted by his servant. His breath came short and quick now that he stood upon the threshold. He pushed aside the servant who opened the familiar door at the summons of the clanging bell, and strode into the hall. A fire burned on the wide hearth; but the atmosphere of the great stone–paved chamber was damp and chilly.

  Captain Arundel walked straight to the door of the western drawing–room. It was there that he had seen lights in the windows; it was there that he expected to find Olivia Marchmont.

  He was not mistaken. A shaded lamp burnt dimly on a table near the fire. There was a low invalid–chair beside this table, an open book upon the floor, and an Indian shawl, one he had sent to his cousin, flung carelessly upon the pillows. The neglected fire burned low in the old–fashioned grate, and above the dull–red blaze stood the figure of a woman, tall, dark, and gloomy of aspect.